The Boat
February 2023
We are happy to finally introduce our new catamaran!
After staying in Ho Chi Minh City for 4 months waiting for our brand new Max Cruise 44 to be complete, we unfortunately fairly quickly came to the conclusion that it wasn't going to work out between the builder and us.
After Christmas 2022, having fun with the kids in Vietnam, we started the boat search again from scratch. We were interested in a Slyder 49 for sale in Spain but when contacted the broker eventually told us there was already an offer in place.
Next, we found a Luna 47 performance catamaran in Montenegro. To be honest, I didn't even know where this was. But on Jan 7th, we said good-bye to the big city of Ho Chi Minh one last time and took a flight to Tivat, Montenegro. We had to do an overnight stop in Belgrade, Serbia then the next day we arrived in Porto Montenegro Marina and here she is:
Stray Kitty is a Luna 47 a true bluewater sailing catamaran designed to be alive under sail and always safe. it's fully electric propulsion, built by infusion using only vinylester resin with a combination of glass and carbon fibres.
Stray Kitty
Trampolines
Cockpit
Bunk Beds on Port
Stray Kitty 1 2008-2012
Check out the Antares web site for more information about the PDQ Antares: https://www.antarescatamarans.com/
Sailing in Fiji
The boat we FINALLY chose is a PDQ Antares 42 - yes a catamaran. We are no longer monohull sailors. We decided that with three young children a multihull would be the way to go. After searching high and low, two trips to Florida, Bahamas, Annapolis, we found our Stray Kitty right in our home province of Ontario! There she was 5 1/2 hours away in Parry Sound all that time. Thanks for waiting for us!
Other boats that were on our consideration list were :
Leopard 42, 45 and 47,
Voyage 430, 440,
Privlege.
We chartered a Leopard 42 from The Moorings in Abacos for a week in March 2008. That solidified the decision that we definitely wanted to buy a multihull. It felt really solid, it didn't' heel and there was a lot of room for the five of us. We weren't particularly interested in 4 heads though. We went to see a Voyage 430 and a Voyage 440 but I couldn't see myself living on it, the Privlege we looked at in Florida was not in very good shape and all the other ones were way out of our price range.
The PDQ Antares 42 was built in Whitby, Ontario, Stray Kitty is hull #4. It is a 2002. It has 3 berths, 2 heads, a huge saloon, galley down, tons of storage space for all of our belongings.
Some pictures of the inside of Stray Kitty, a very comfortable yacht and easily sailed by two people.
Chris cooking breakfast in the galley, we still can't believe how much room we have for storage and cooking.
Trying out our new washer/dryer for the first time. Is it going to leak? NO it doesn't. Is it going to work? YES IT DOES!
Navigation station
Large couch that turns into a bed with the table down.
February 2009
After sailing for three months in the Caribbean, we have to say that we are very happy with our choice of boat. The PDQ Antares cat, sails amazingly well in the waves and high winds (25-35 knots), and with the high freeboard we feel very safe and stay dry! Some people say that catamarans don't point very well into the wind, however most of our sailing has been upwind and we are managing just fine. The boat is so comfortable that sometimes we forget that we are living on a boat. When we are at anchor and that North swell starts to roll in we are so thankful that we decided to go with a cat.